Excerpts from A Little Of Chickamauga (The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce)

by Ambrose Bierce

... The forest was so dense that the hostile lines came almost into contact before fighting was possible. One instance was particularly horrible. After some hours of close engagement my brigade, with foul pieces and exhausted cartridge boxes, was relieved and withdrawn to the road to protect several batteries of artillery -- probably two dozen pieces -- which commanded an open field in the rear of our line. Before our weary and virtually disarmed men had actually reached the guns the in front gave way, fell back behind the guns and went on, the Lord knows whither. A moment later the field was gray with Confederates.

... Then the guns opened fire with grape and canister and for perhaps five minutes -- it seemed an hour -- nothing could be heard but the infernal din of their discharge and nothing seen through the smoke but a great ascension of dust from the smitten soil. When all was over, and the dust cloud lifted, the spectacle was too dreadful to describe. The Confederates were still there -- all of them, it seemed -- some almost under the muzzles of the guns. But not a man of these brave fellows was on his feet, and so thickly were all covered with dust that they looked as if they had been reclothed in yellow.

... to my astonishment I saw the entire country in front swarming with Confederates; the very earth seemed to be moving toward us! They came on in thousands, and so rapidly that we had barely time to turn tail and gallop down the hill and away, leaving them in possession of the train, many of the wagons being upset by frantic efforts to put them about.

... What I saw was the shimmer of sunlight on metal: lines of troops were coming in behind us! The distance was too great, the atmosphere too hazy to distinguish the color of their uniform, even with a glass.

...I met General Negley, and my duties as topographical engineer having given me some knowledge of the lay of the land offered to pilot him back to glory or the grave. I regret to say my good offices were rejected.

... I know, though, that while the sun was taking its own time to set we lived through the agony of at least one death each, waiting for them to come on. At last it grew too dark to fight.

... It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard - even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope. (Commenting upon the rebel yell.)

...where, with bended heads and clasped hand, God's great angels stood invisible among the heroes in blue and the heroes in gray, sleeping their last sleep in the woods of Chickamauga. (1898)